


Picking Every Battle

by laufey



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Icelandic Mythology, Idk if this is just friendship or something more you decide, Sea Beasts, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9257294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laufey/pseuds/laufey
Summary: If you want to kill a beast you have to know it first.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yuuago](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuago/gifts).



**Öfuguggi**

How old was she? Three? Four? She didn't quite remember, the memory was hazy and only a few parts of it stood out, faded by the years. How she sat at the back of the boat, wrapped up in many layers of itchy wool and an oiled leather coat, a life jacket and a hat far too large for her, almost unable to move for all the clothing. How the sea lapped at the side of the boat, the wind made her nose cold, how her mother rowed slowly onward from one net to the next.

When she got older she fully understood how unusual her childhood really had been, how free and open in comparison to the other kids who were not allowed even near the shoreline. A rare immune familyline with permits far beyond most Icelanders' reach. A well-paid job guaranteed in her future. So guaranteed in fact that she never considered any alternatives, seafaring was what she had been born to, so - she thought - it was her responsibility.

(A thick layer of nets folded onto the bottom of the boat, many fish already in a water box in the middle, a few stuck in the net.)

And so, having exhausted all her good behaviour on fulfilling that one responsibility she turned out to be a horrible brat for the rest, but that would happen later on. In this early memory, the first one she had, any kind of brattiness was not only normal for an Icelandic child, it was also widely encouraged by grownups around. A misbehaving child turned out to be a fearless adult after all.

"Look at this, Ása", her mother said. "This is important to know." She was untangling a large, ugly, fish-looking thing from the net, except that it seemed weirder than the usual ugly fish.

"See how the fins turn forward like little arms? Normal fish fins -" and at this she grabbed a fish from the storage tank to show her, "- go smoothly back along its sides. This is not a fish, it's a little sea beast called Öfuguggi. Never eat a fish with weird fins, Ása, never, and never, ever bring one to dry land. Every non-immune person coming near it will get ill and die."

Ása nodded, or tried to, she could barely move for being so well bundled up.

"Another important thing, Ása. If you see a sea beast, never let it live if you can kill it."

Mother took out her knife and slit the creature's neck, showing her the fins on the body once more before the Öfuguggi disappeared into the waves.

 

**Fjörulalli**

The two little boys were crying. Any moment now they'd try to run away, but before that happened she, Ása, would have to run first. Fastest. She tried to will her body to move, but it was as if the beast had her hypnotized and none of her limbs agreed with her.

That time she was twelve, although her birthday would have been on the following day. It was plain good luck she ever lived to thirteen.

Children were children, and it was almost as if Icelandic children were brought up to misbehave. Their rules were few, but one that was an unbreakable one was to never, ever pass the quarantine border to the sea. Almost none of them were immune, and even Ása and her family were only allowed their constant rowing because their house was within the forbidden zone, just like all seafarers'.

These two boys had clearly felt the tug of curiousity too hard to resist, and were now regretting it loudly. Non-immunes, for them it was already risky to be near Ása and they definitely didn't stand a single chance against the beast. To their greatest misfortune this was no ordinary sea beast, it was a Fjörulalli.

Fjörulalli were former seals, or other sea mammals. Unlike their animal equivalents they were fearfully quick on dry land, their one specialty was that they never let prey escape. Of a group of people at least one would be attacked, there was no avoiding it once a Fjörulalli got you in its sight. The first to run was the one it went after and - and - it moved so much faster than any human could.

She squeezed her eyes shut and ran.

The next time she opened them was many days after the incident, and it seemed like everyone in the room was crying. She was bandaged from throat to hips and moving was both difficult and painful, not to mention the light hurt her eyes. Later on she'd find out that a coast guard had seen everything and had managed to get there just in time to kill the beast, but for now the first words that greeted her were: "You're grounded FOR A YEAR."

 

**Skötumóðir**

She slipped her hand back into the handcuffs with no time for anything else, clenched her fists under the table and watched her captor, trying to pack all her anger into her eyes. The man was clad in typical Norwegian coast guard uniform, he was about her age or a bit older, shorter than her, slender, with brown hair and a beard. He squinted a lot, which made Ása wonder if he couldn't see well.

Things had not gone well after her ship had decided to help out a Norwegian coast patrol ship that had had a Skötumóðir attached to its side. Skötumóðir were a type of a sea beast that was basically nothing but ugly flaps of leather stretched over bone and claws, would try to grab the side of a vessel and capsize it with their weight, and they were notoriously hard to fight from the attacked ship because the attacker was not only directly below it, it also had very few vital spots to aim for.

"Should have let you deal with it on your own", she muttered darkly, and the man turned around and shrugged at her. "I'm sorry, did you say you should never have tried to smuggle illegal goods to Norway? You're right about that", he replied.

The box sat open on the side of the room, full of dark brown bricks, 75%, Iceland-grown, the value of the one small box would have been enough to pay back the whole rest of the loan she had taken to buy her ship.

The man let out a little sigh. "Oh well. Don't be so upset, you're only 17 and you'll probably get off with a light sentence. If I were you I'd try to claim I didn't know what you agreed to ship", he said with his voice full of suggestion, "I could confirm you were very surprised when I told you what it was. You'd only get a year, your crew will be off with nothing and can take care of your vessel while you're... away. How's it sound like?"

Ása wiped a handcuffed sleeve over her eyes and blinked furiously. She sniffed, and the man had the decency to look uncomfortable. "F... fuck you", she managed and grabbed the glass of water in front of her, taking a big mouthful.

She spat it out immediately all over the floor. Coughing and spitting she looked up at the man, met his eyes and noticed for the first time how blue they were. How very blue. "WHAT did you put in this water? What's in it?! It tastes weird, it tastes WRONG! What are you trying to feed me?!"

The man took the glass and sniffed at it, then tasted it. "You're right... it tastes like salt", he said, took another gulp and made a face. "I'll get you a new one, sorry about that, maybe the water container is contaminated...?"

With that he stood up, took two steps and fell down like a sack of rocks. Ása slipped her hands off the cuffs again, closed the box of high cacao content chocolate, wrapped it in her cape and casually strolled out of the house. Her ship was waiting, her customer was waiting, and she was _not_ waiting for this guy - Trond - to wake up. She shoved the little bottle of knockout drops into her glove and began to jog down to the harbour.

 

**Fjörulalli**

"Ása."

She stopped as if struck by lightning, her whole life having taught her that this particular tone meant she was in deep trouble again. She glanced over her shoulder and at first she couldn't quite place the man addressing her, but despite the civilian clothes she was sure she had seen him before somewhere. Then the Norwegian pattern of his sweater clicked the memory that was filed under T for Twit, and she knew.

"Oh hi! Been a while since we met hasn't it, what, five years already? Nice glasses. Are they new?"

"Thank y-"

She knew this area better than him and was fast, but even as she did her best he kept closing in on her. Damn Trond, damn all the mountain monkeys, of course he'd be good at moving fast on a cliff side! She took one bad step and felt the rocks under her heel roll away. She regained her footing and took a leap forward, begging for the sandy beach to cushion her fall a little.

That it did, but alas it did the same favour for Trond. She got three steps further and then his hands were at the back of her collar, pulling her off her feet and tossing her gracelessly on her face. She spat out black sand and turned to meet him, but Trond had already caught her by the front of her coat and dragged her halfway up. "You're arrested, don't even try asking me if I can, I assure you I can. Now we'll -"

Yes, his eyes were really just as blue as she remembered. Ása replied "We'll?" before realizing those eyes weren't looking at her anymore but somewhere behind her. She turned to follow them.

Ah, a Fjörulalli, shit shit shit... Trond let go of her carefully and pushed her behind himself.

"Go. Run. I'll take care of it."

"Um, do you... do you know what that is?"

"It's a sea beast."

"I mean, you know what it does?"

"I'll find out. Now shut. Up. And. GO!"

Ása sighed, drew her short sword and bolted away as fast as she could. Again she was running to save some idiot boy she thought, but at least this time was different. She was not afraid now, she already knew to expect the attack when it came and turned to meet it with perfect timing. From behind the beast she saw Trond run towards them as she stuck the beast in the throat, pulled back and hit it again, this time under its jaw and all the way into its brain. She barely jumped out of the way as it fell down dead.

"Shit", Trond was panting, it had taken him but a moment to run there but indeed, Fjörulalli were so much faster than humans. "I did not think it'd do that. Good work."

"Fjörulalli always chase the first one to run. Not my first one of this type, friend", she said happily, "although the last time I met one did not go quite this well."

"Really? What happened?"

"It got me pretty good. Let's just say you really don't want to see me naked."

Trond glanced at her, then down to the ground again, and for once he seemed lost for words.

"OOOOH. You do want to see me naked, is that it?"

"I - NO! I mean, I mean -"

Ása stood right in front of him until he at long last looked back at her. It was great to be taller than him, she thought, and said: "We'll forget that we ever met here, ok? You never saw me, you never almost fed me to a Fjörulalli and you never suggested you wanted to see me naked, or" she added, "that you felt scared to look at a woman with a few scars."

"That's - are you blackmailing me?"

"It's a handy skill. Try it sometime."

 

**Rauðkembingur**

"Don't move."

Good advice, Ása thought, she really didn't want to. Where was this? She tried to open her eyes and even though the light in the room was dim it still hurt her eyes. It felt like she had seen this all before somewhere.

After a while she could make out the shape of the roof above: a triangular, wooden ceiling, elaborate carvings, so much space around her, she didn't think she'd ever been in a building as large and tall as this one. None of this answered her question though, only made her more curious.

"Where am I?"

"Norway. Dalsnes. At my house", the same voice replied. "In the upstairs guest room, to be exact."

She turned her head, very gingerly because every movement hurt, to see the very person sitting by her bed she already knew to expect, apparently reading a book.

"You've broken quite a few bones. If you were the age you're acting I'd ground you for a year. At least."

"Uhhh... I'm sorry, friend -"

"Trond."

"- Trond. Am I arrested again?"

"No. For one, I'm a troll hunter these days, I have no power to arrest anyone. You're a guest at my place, because you decided to get injured right after the troll hunting season was over and the hospital is as full as it can be. I've asked a nurse to come check up on you daily, they're all pressed for time but somehow it's worked out."

Ása let this sink in a little, trying to shake her brain for something, anything, but nothing was coming up. "So... what happened? I mean sorry", she grimaced, "for whatever I did to piss you off this time."

"You got yourself involved again, that's what you did." Trond let the book fall on a side table. He took a few deep breaths and Ása knew better than to say anything while the atmosphere was this tense. After a while he told her the story.

Their vessel had been hunting a huge sea beast, red with bone spikes along its spine. It had taken to harassing the local fishing boats, using its back spikes to smash them from below, and they had been looking for it until one day they finally got it in their sight. Their ship was well armored and equipped with military harpoons, but the beast's back was covered with bony scales and it swam so fast it had taken them a long time to fight it. Besides that they were suddenly engulfed in sea fog, which made everything even worse.

He had been taking another aim and had missed his chance when Ása's ship's dragon head had appeared from the mist without a warning. Their harpoons made one hit, but as she well knew her ship was not made specifically for fighting, and though the beast was wounded it was far from dead, just really, really pissed off. It had swam under her ship and hit it once, and as the vessel shook violently from the impact, Trond said, he had seen Ása fall over the railing of a harpoon tower and hit the metal clad deck a few metres below.

"The next one from our ship hit it right in the eye. Our harpoons are a bit - well - let's say ours are a javelin compared to your needles, but you did manage to distract it well enough so we got a good aim. We got your crew on our ship and once we reached land I had you brought here."

"My crew? But... what for?"

Trond was silent for a moment. Then he said in a quiet voice: "Well. I'm sorry. You no longer have a ship."

*****

The autumn grew darker and darker, and her bones healed slowly. At times she went outside for walks, but the trees were weird and she didn't like being near the harbour. She met a few members of her crew occasionally and it was always awkward, neither side quite knowing what to say, and so she eventually began to avoid the seaside completely. Some days she didn't get up at all.

Worst of it, she thought, was that she had been unconscious. It would have been easier to let go of the past if she'd seen it sink beneath the waves with her own eyes. Now it felt more like she had woken up one day to find out that the most important thing in her life had been taken away by some strange invisible power overnight, which technically speaking was exactly what had happened, but knowing this didn't make her feel any better. She kept telling herself she'd buy a new ship, a bigger one, she'd work and save money just like the last time, it was no big deal. No big deal, no big deal, she repeated as if hoping she'd eventually believe herself.

Yule came and passed. She tried once to rise the topic of what she felt was leeching off of someone's goodwill, but it didn't feel sincere and ended in a lot of awkwardness. They both knew well that she had nowhere to go before the storm season would be over, travel to Iceland was impossible at midwinter when the storms were at their worst and the largest sea beasts migrated north. Getting to live at Trond's house was comfortable to say the least, and besides she still needed to ask someone for help with things that had been taken for granted before, like walking down the stairs without having to crawl and curse all the way (she wondered if setting her up in the upstairs bedroom had been a very deliberate choice... it probably had been).

Then the season turned, the days grew lighter and the weather calmed down, and one midday in early April she finally boarded a ship to return home. She stood on the side of the deck for a while as they departed, waved at Trond for the last time, yawned and turned to go find her cabin. She'd sleep like a log from the moment her head hit the pillow, she knew, and half dragging her sack of belongings she closed the door to the deck behind her.

Of course, they would meet so many times again.

**Author's Note:**

> All the beasts mentioned are from Icelandic mythology, although I've taken some artistic liberties to fit them into Y90 world.
> 
> Öfuguggi: a fish with fins that turn front instead of back. They're poisonous, the only story I've managed to find about them says that a whole house of people was found dead after having caught (and apparently eaten) an Öfuguggi.
> 
> Fjörulalli: a hairy seal or otter -looking creature, size of a big sheep. If you get between it and the sea it will not let you leave, it will force you into the sea. From this I gather it's pretty fast.
> 
> Skötumóðir: a fish thief, mostly, but a dangerous one. It wants your catch so it latches onto the side of your boat and tries to capsize it.
> 
> Rauðkembingur: a gigantic sea creature that eats f.ex. whales, that it hunts by swimming underneath them and slicing them open with a long, sharp top row of back scales. Attacks boats the same way.


End file.
